It was not thus that the two ladies could be led to desist; they soothed her, but again returned to the charge. Lady Cecil brought a thousand arguments of worldly wisdom, of feminine delicacy. Mrs. Raby insinuated the duty owed to her family, to shield it from the disgrace she was bringing on it. They both insisted on the impossibility, on the foolish romance of her notions. Had she been really his daughter, her joining him in prison was impracticable—out of all propriety. But Elizabeth had been brought up to regard feelings, rather than conventional observances; duties, not proprieties. All her life Falkner had been her law, rule, every tie to her; she knew and felt nothing beyond. When she had followed him to Greece—when she had visited the Morea, to bear him, dying, away—when at Zante she had watched by his sick couch, the world, and all the Rabys it contained, were nothing to her; and now, when he was visited by a far heavier calamity, when, in solitude and misery, he had, besides her, no one comfort under heaven, was she to adopt a new system of conduct, become a timid, home—bred young lady, tied by the most frivolous rules, impeded by fictitious notions of propriety and false delicacy? Whether they were right and she were wrong—whether, indeed, such submission to society—such useless, degrading dereliction of nobler duties, was adapted for feminine conduct, and whether she, despising such bonds, sought a bold and dangerous freedom, she could not tell; she only knew and felt, that for her, educated, as she had been, beyond the narrow paling of boarding-school ideas, or the refinements of a lady's boudoir, that, where her benefactor was, there she ought, to be; and that to prove her gratitude, to preserve her faithful attachment to him amid dire adversity, was her sacred duty—a virtue before which every minor moral faded and disappeared.
The discussion was long; and, even when they found her proof against every attack, they would not give up. They entreated her to go home with them for that day. A wild light beamed from her eyes. "I am going home," she cried; "an hour hence, and I shall be gone to where my true home is. How strange it is that you should imagine that I could linger here!
"Be not afraid for me, dear Lady Cecil," she continued; "all will go well with me; and you will, after a little reflection, acknowledge that I could not act other than I do. And will you, Mrs. Raby, forgive my seeming ingratitude? I acknowledge the justice of your demands. I thank you for your proposed kindness. The name of Raby shall receive no injury; it shall never escape my lips. My father will preserve the same silence. Be not angry with me; but—except that I remember my dear parents with affection—I would say, I take more joy and pride in being his daughter, his friend at this need, than in the distinction and prosperity your kindness offers. I give up every claim on my family; the name of Raby shall not be tainted: but Elizabeth Falkner, with all her wilfulness and faults, shall, at least, prove her gratitude to him who bestowed that appellation on her."
And thus they parted. Lady Cecil veiling her distress in sullenness; while Mrs. Raby was struck and moved by her niece's generosity, which was in accordance with her own noble mind. But she felt that other judges would sit upon the cause, and decide from other motives. She parted from her as a pagan relative might from a young Christian martyr—admiring, while she deplored her sacrifice, and feeling herself wholly incapable of saving.
[CHAPTER XL]
Elizabeth delayed not a moment proceeding on her journey; an exalted enthusiasm made her heart beat high, and almost joyously. This buoyancy of spirit, springing from a generous course of action, is the compensation provided for our sacrifices of inclination—and at least, on first setting out, blinds us to the sad results we may be preparing for ourselves. Elated by a sense of acting according to the dictates of her conscience, despite the horror of the circumstances that closed in the prospect, her spirits were light, and her eyes glistened with a feeling at once triumphant and tender, while reflecting on the comfort she was bringing to her unfortunate benefactor. A spasm of horror seized her now and then, as the recollection pressed that he was in prison—accused as a murderer—but her young heart refused to be cowed, even by the ignominy and anguish of such a reflection.
A philosopher not long ago remarked, when adverting to the principle of destruction latent in all works of art, and the overthrow of the most durable edifices; "but when they are destroyed, so as to produce only dust, Nature asserts an empire over them; and the vegetative world rises in constant youth, and in a period of annual successions, by the labours of man, providing food, vitality and beauty adorn the wrecks of monuments, which were once raised for purposes of glory." Thus when crime and wo attack and wreck an erring human being, the affections and virtues of one faithfully attached decorate the ruin with alien beauty; and make that pleasant to the eye and heart which otherwise we might turn from as a loathsome spectacle.
It was a cold September day when she began her journey, and the solitary hours spent on the road exhausted her spirits. In the evening she arrived at Stony Stratford, and here, at the invitation of her servant, consented to spend the night. The solitary inn-room, without a fire, and her lonely supper, chilled her; so susceptible are we to the minor casualties of life, even when we meet the greater with heroic resolution. She longed to skip the present hour, to be arrived—she longed to see Falkner, and to hear his voice—she felt forlorn and deserted. At this moment the door was opened, "a gentleman" was announced, and Gerard Neville entered. Love and nature at this moment asserted their full sway—her heart bounded in her bosom, her cheek flushed, her soul was deluged at once with a sense of living delight—she had never thought to see him more—she had tried to forget that she regretted this; but he was there, and she felt that such a pleasure were cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of her existence. He also felt the influence of the spell. He came agitated by many fears, perplexed by the very motive that led him to her—but she was there in all her charms, the dear object of his nightly dreams and waking reveries—hesitation and reserve vanished in her presence, and they both felt the alliance of their hearts.
"Now that I am here, and see you," said Neville, "it seems to me the most natural thing in the world that I should have followed you as I have done. While away, I had a thousand misgivings—and wherefore? did you not sympathize in my sufferings, and desire to aid me in my endeavours; and I feel convinced that fate, while by the turn of events it appeared to disunite, has, in fact, linked us closer than ever. I am come with a message from Sophia—and to urge also, on my own part, a change in your resolves; you must not pursue your present journey."
"You have, indeed, been taking a lesson from Lady Cecil, when you say this," replied Elizabeth; "she has taught you to be worldly for me—a lesson you would not learn on your own account—she did not seduce me in this way; I gave you my support when you were going to America."